Ethan Cannon

NCAAs. Weird day because it was very warm, but so windy that I was freezing in the morning. Our women won which is absolutely incredible of them. Then we stepped up to the line. We started out with the wind at our back and running downhill. So it was going to be blazing fast. I just did not feel comfortable going out any faster than I did- 2:47 through the first kilometer, in about 240th place. Yep. Clayson was just ahead of me which was a little concerning but nothing too serious yet. Turns out at the time we were doing great as a team (in the lead through the first couple kilometers). I passed people pretty fast, but not as fast as I needed to. And it was disappointing as the race progressed to hear people still yell out that we were like 140th or so. At a certain point, I passed Clayson and eventually came up on Aidan AND Elijah. I realized that TWO of us would be scoring, which is when I realized our team wasn't doing so hot. The race progressed; I actually did pretty well up the hills. 8:50 at 3k, 15:18 through 5k. I was in about 100th by 6k, and that was the one split I didnt move up in place. My kick at the end wasn't stellar, and it was dissapointing because I saw like 25 people within 15-20 seconds of me at one point, so I wished I could catch them, but didn't. Anyway I saw myself catching Jackson Mestler and almost got him. 83rd and our third runner because one of our top 3 basically passed out with 400 to go. Tough day. Hopefully things go better from here. Congrats to the other Utah teams who did very well, and NAU who is a better team than us right now, hands down. I hope this fall my teammates can bring home some more hardware. Also- Mantz never gets on the blog these days, but he WON. First American in over a decade (back to Galen Rupp). That's absolutely amazing.